


prison break

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s02e15 One Door Closes, Established Relationship, F/M, Hydra Jemma Simmons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-05
Updated: 2016-04-05
Packaged: 2018-05-31 11:30:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6468559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s gas filtering in on the other side of the barrier.</p>
            </blockquote>





	prison break

**Author's Note:**

> SafelyCapricious prompted "spine kiss" for biospec.

There’s always a shift in the weight of the air in the room - or maybe it’s just that, with only four walls and his wife to keep him busy, he’s become even more attuned to her moods. Regardless, he can always tell when she’s getting fed up with just watching him work out and wants to touch.

So he’s not surprised by the arm that shoots out from the bed when he passes after coming down from his hand-stand push-ups, but he lets her pull him off balance anyway.

“What was that for?” he asks after the bed stops jumping from his weight. She’s already straddling him, hands sliding up his sweaty chest and that look in her eye that says this is gonna be a _very_ good day for him.

“Mine,” she says, and bends down to kiss him.

Oh yeah, definitely a good day. He never understood, early on in their relationship, why it turned her on so much when he’d get jealous or possessive with her, but ever since she started doing the same with him, he _really_ gets it.

He’s got his hands under her shirt and hers are in his hair and heading for the drawstring on his pants (she thinks she can distract him so he won’t notice until she‘s palming him out of his briefs, it’s kind of adorable), when she goes stiff and cold above him.

“Grant,” she says, leaving off kissing his neck. He’s already back, eyes open and fixed on just what’s scared her so bad.

There’s gas filtering in on the other side of the barrier.

He rolls her to the wall and rolls himself off the bed. He approaches the line on the floor carefully and, one sharp jolt to his fingertips later, breathes a sigh of relief that the barrier’s still up. He never thought he’d be thankful for the damn thing.

“It’s dendrotoxin,” Jemma says, in that tone he knows better than to question. “But why release it down here?”

He lifts his eyes to the vents it’s pouring in from. “It might not’ve been just down here.” He returns to the bed while she babbles about their private air filtration system. For now, the two of them are safe, but an attack on the Playground isn’t necessarily good news - it’s definitely not for the team.

So much for his good day.

 

\-----

 

He’s on his side, Jemma curled at his back. He knows she doesn’t like appearing weak, even in situations where she is, but she’s letting him stand (lie, whatever) between her and whatever’s out there and that - along with the kisses she occasionally presses to his shoulder blades and spine - helps calm his nerves all the way through watching the gas fill up the outer chamber of the vault and then watching it thin until there’s no trace of it left.

Whatever’s happening out there, he doubts it’s over yet.

The barrier crackles to life with no one holding the controls on the other side. Grant sits up and Jemma’s right behind him, up on her knees to see over his head. The barrier goes opaque and then flashes, different squares lighting up the way they do whenever a few are dropped to let one of them - only ever one of them - out. At first it looks totally random but all at once a pattern appears.

 _MOVE_ , it reads in blinding yellow. _NOW_.

And then the barrier’s gone.

Grant’s not about to look a gift horse in the mouth. He grabs Jemma and pulls her along after him, hesitating only momentarily at the line on the floor to be sure the barrier’s really done. Then it’s up the stairs, moving so fast he’s practically carrying Jemma behind him. The lock on the door clicks the moment before his feet touch the landing and they’re through and strong hands are pulling him to one side, into a dark room fixed with only a bank of computer screens. Each and every one of them shows a different view of the vault.

There’s a comment about voyeurs on the tip of his tongue, but when he sees May’s face lit up by the screens, he bites it back. She might be even more pissed than she was at Cybertek.

“What’s going on?” Jemma asks.

“You two know Morse and Mack?” May asks, knowing full well they do.

Each of them’s been let out individually multiple times in the last nine months - Grant to work on field ops and give tactical support against HYDRA, and Jemma to give Fitz help in the labs; they’ve met their replacements.

“They’re traitors,” May says.

“Yay!” Jemma bursts out, only to immediately walk it back. “Wait. Our kind of traitors or some other kind?”

“Other kind.”

“Yay!” That earns her two incredulous looks and she sighs. “Every time I make the _least_ bit of headway with Fitz, the second you lot throw me back in that cell, Mack swoops in and convinces him I’m the devil again. I won’t mind losing him.”

Grant can’t say he blames her. For one, watching her growing frustration with Fitz’s lack of sympathy is less appealing than he always thought it would be. For another, he hates Morse plenty on her own - her and that ex of hers. “Hunter?” he asks. If Morse and Mack are traitors, it stands to reason he’s one too.

“We don’t think so but we can’t be certain. He went missing a week ago and their excuses as to why were obviously lies. Could be he found them out and they shut him up, could be he’s one of them.”

Grant’s jaw twitches. He knows what he’s hoping for.

“They brought an invading force into the Playground - it’s already been taken,” she adds quickly before either of them can get any ideas. “They believe they’re the real SHIELD. They don’t trust Coulson, they don’t trust us, and I get the idea they’re not gonna be too generous with the HYDRA agents locked in the basement.”

Grant takes Jemma’s hand. He knows they’ve been lucky. If it was anyone other than Coulson, they’d have been separated, probably tortured, used against each other. As it is, the worst he’s done is always keep one imprisoned against the other’s good behavior and even that, Grant’s willing to bet, wouldn’t have involved either of their deaths.

“So you’re letting us go?” Jemma asks, her disbelief obvious in her tone.

“Just like that?” Grant adds, knowing it can’t be that easy.

“I can get you to an exit,” May says. She hands Grant a phone. “And I can give you Skye’s coordinates. She’s off-base at the moment, trying to get some control. If these people find her - and it won’t be long before they do, with access to all of our systems - whatever they do to her, it won’t be good.”

“You’re sending us on a mission?” There’s a little bit of hope in Jemma’s voice.

May ignores it, her eyes still fixed on Grant. “You two protect Skye, I’ll know I can trust you. You take this opportunity to disappear, I’ll come after you once I’m done with these people.”

Grant smiles. “Sounds like a lot of people. It might take you a while.”

May smiles right back, hers even sharper than his. “It might.” 

 

\-----

 

“So,” Grant says once it’s just him and Jemma riding in one of the other SHIELD’s vehicles. (Grant felt it was a poetic kind of justice - plus they were the closest cars to the sewer exit May sent him and Jemma through.)

“So,” Jemma echoes, turning to face him in her seat.

“Skye is literally a continent away,” he says. According to the cell May gave him, she’s in New England and they're on the West Coast. That’s a hell of a trip for two fugitives.

“And there’s no telling how many people are after us these days,” Jemma says, tracking the progress of his thoughts. “Taking a flight across country would be the height of recklessness.”

“We’ve gotta empty one of the lockers anyway, might as well just disappear, get a jump on May.”

“Might as well,” she sighs.

Grant gives it a count of three. “So we’re going then?”

Jemma smiles wider than he’s seen in _months_ ; he almost wants to thank Morse and Mack for that - almost. “I’m thinking,” she says as she settles back into her seat, “that I’ll pretend to be pregnant. It’s a good excuse for buying a last minute ticket and I’ve got that photostatic mesh in the San Francisco locker. It can easily hide any number of weapons from an airport scanner so we wouldn’t have to waste time on another locker after we land.”

He laughs. “You have a whole plan all ready to go, don’t you?”

She just goes on smiling.

“Do I wanna know when you cooked this up?”

“Before we overheard Weaver talking about Fitz being in the infirmary. After that I was busy planning ways to poison her.”

He reaches over to drag her to him and then, just briefly, takes his eyes off the road to kiss her forehead. “God, I love you.”

 


End file.
